


Waiting in the Office

by zlmbo



Category: Captain Underpants Series - Dav Pilkey, Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017)
Genre: Cuddling, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mild Angst, Sensory Overload, and just his luck george is sick, either way it’s really gay, follows more like the book or cartoon and it’s probably fit for both, george is normally the ones people say has sensory overloads but FUCK IT harold does too now, harold has seperation anxiety, i guess it also counts as a panic attack?, it references both anyway, melvins just there and has to deal with all this, this is based a lot around my experiences, vent fic, well the sensory overload stuff, wrote at like 2 am
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 07:56:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18027797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zlmbo/pseuds/zlmbo
Summary: Harold’s already having a bad day, and sensory overloads just love to happen at the worst time. Hopefully the one other kid waiting to get in to see Mr. Krupp can help him.





	Waiting in the Office

**Author's Note:**

> oK GAMERS UH  
> I HOPE YALL LIKE THIS ITS MY FIRST TIME WRITING THESE CHARACTERS  
> ITS DEFINITELY OUT OF CHARACTER BUT HEY ITS MY VENT FIC SO IT DOESNT MATTER I GUESS
> 
> also this ship needs more love  
> i’ll write smth for george/harold/melvin one day i swear but just have 2 of the boyos for now
> 
> i hope i depicted the sensory overload well bc i have half a brain cell n i tried to describe how mine typically go  
> also sorry there isn’t more Cuddlytimes i’m just too tried to make anything decent n i just wanna get this out of the way before i end up scrapping it completely
> 
> this was written mostly at like. 3 am so it probably sucks

This is Harold Hutchins. He’s the kid walking to the principal’s office with the tears running down his cheeks and the bad haircut. Remember that now.

Around now you should be saying; “Hey, this is a Captain Underpants story. So why’s it just Harold and not George too?” Well to put it simply; George is home sick. Harold had hoped he could act like he was sick too and stay home or maybe see if he could ask to stay and doctor his best friend all day, but his mother said no.

That one fact made his entire morning at school a living hell. He might as well have been actually sick. It was obvious to Harold that he isn’t the same when George isn’t around. He tends to worry about his friend at any moment they’re apart, as well as what he’d do if any bullies tried to start something and George couldn’t be there to whip the troublemaker with his tie. That’s been a fear of his since Kindergarten. Harold already couldn’t focus well on schoolwork, but now? He couldn’t even focus on his artwork- the one way he could cope when George wasn’t there. The boy had been tense all day and it was visible to everyone.

Now to the reason why Harold’s walking to Krupp’s office. As you could probably guess, a teacher had sent him there. Now what could Harold have done in this state? The biggest thing elementary school teachers refuse to understand or try to help students with; have a sensory overload. It had happened at lunch, the worst possible time. It was obvious that Harold was already very tense, and mixing that with a crowd of kids running to the lunchroom was not good.

He tried to stay back and avoid the crowd, even then the cramped hallways were flooded with children. Harold was lucky he had a lunch his mom packed, because otherwise he would have waited so long in the lunch line he wouldn’t have gotten much time to eat. By the time Harold had made it to the lunch room, he had already been shoved out of the way by at least 3 kids way too eager to eat some crappy school food. As he stepped into the cafeteria, there was one thing that was blatantly abnormal. It may have just been a bad day for Harold’s hearing, or the kids were extra excited for something, but it was outrageously loud. That was undeniable. The sound of all of the children talking at once was overwhelming to hell and back. Harold covered his ears as he tried to find a seat. He found a place on the end of a table where nobody seemed to be sitting and situated himself there. He couldn’t focus on his lunch. All that he could think about is how much he wished George were here, and the NOISE. It hurt. It hurt a lot. But it’d be rediculous to ask an entire school of children to be quiet, especially during lunch. So he sat and covered his ears. It barely helped the sound, no matter what Harold did, no matter what way he positioned his hands. The noise started to give him a headache, causing tears to form in the boy’s eyes. Everything had started to build up; first George not being there, then the noise, now the headache. Harold couldn’t help but put his head down on the table, resting on his arms, and sob quietly to himself. Nobody would notice though, counting on just how noisy everyone around him was. He was starting to panic. George wasn’t here to comfort him. Nobody could help him- he wasn’t close with any of the other kids the way he was with George. Nobody would be willing to calm the panicked boy.

About the entire lunch period went by before a teacher spoke up.

”Hutchins! You’re being disruptive with your crying! Go to the principal’s office!”

The voice practically made Harold jump in his seat on account of how it came out of basically nowhere. He knew as well that he wasn’t even causing any problems- but it was best not to argue with a teacher. He tried his best to calm himself down enough to get up, managing after about a minute. He grabbed his lunch bag and started to slowly walk out of the lunch room, staring at the floor the entire time and refusing to even recognize what teacher had yelled at him.

Harold wouldn’t lie, it was a lot better out of the cafeteria. The hallways were almost completely quiet apart from the surprisingly well muffled sound of children doing anything but eating during lunch. The relief wasn’t enough to completely calm Harold down, though. He still had a raging headache and missed his best friend. He sighed, realizing he wouldn’t have time to eat lunch today, counting on how Krupp’s rants usually took a while when another teacher sent him to the office. Harold probably wouldn’t be able to stomach much anyway, counting on how his half-sensory-overload-half-panic-attack had left him tired and made him feel sick to his stomach. The boy managed his way down to the hall, trying desperately to calm himself down. By the time Harold made it to the office, his cries were just down to sniffling and occasional hiccups whenever he’d try to speak. Hopefully calm enough to endure Krupp’s wrath.

Upon opening the door, everything seemed normal at first. Miss Anthrope was at her desk typing on her computer, not even noticing Harold came in. But then Harold noticed the kid sitting by the door to Krupp’s office; Melvin Sneedly. He sat reading a book, not even noticing the crying artist in the doorway. Harold walked up to Miss Anthropes desk and tried to get a coherent sentence out.

“I-I was sent to see Mr. K-...Krupp.” He mumbled. “A teacher said I was- I was being disruptive.”

Miss Anthrope didn’t even look away from her work.

“Mr. Krupp is in a meeting with a parent. It’ll be a while. You can sit down and wait.” She glanced at Harold for a second. “And take a tissue if you need one.” She said, nudging a box of tissues towards Harold. He took one and sat down next to Melvin. Finally noticing the other boy’s presence, Melvin marked his place in his book and laid it at his side.

“Well well well. I had expected the simple-twins would show up here today but I’m surprised it took this lo-“ His sarcastic remark trailed off as he noticed not only that it was only Harold there, but the fact that something was definitely wrong with him. Harold looked up from the floor at the boy sitting next to him, slightly confused he didn’t finish his sentence. “It’s juh-just me today, Melvin. George’s home s-sick.”

Melvin couldn’t help but let out a nervous giggle. “Heheh- I knew that. I just- Didn’t have any other ideas for what to say!” he tried to excuse himself any way he could. Harold didn’t say anything and just looked at the floor again, which made Melvin more and more uneasy. This was the one of happiest kids in school- his title only tied by George- and he was sitting here in shambles of his normal self. Tears started to form in Harold’s eyes again as he sat up and leaned against the back of the crappy little bench positioned outside of Krupp’s office. Melvin was understandably worried. He had only seen Harold cry once in his entire live, and that was during the vimpire incident. It hadn’t even been his own doing. Melvin finally broke the silence.

“Are... Are you crying?” He couldn’t think of anything else to say. If there was one thing Melvin was horrible at, it was socializing.

“I-I guess.” Harold looked over at the boy next to him. “Since when do you care?”

Melvin turned away to avoid eye contact.

“I just- Haven’t seen you like this before.”

Harold didn’t respond for a moment.

“Well today... isn’t my day.”

The two sat in silence for a bit.

“Why are you here, anyway?” Harold spoke, barely above a whisper.

Melvin was caught off guard and quickly uttered out a reply.

“Oh- Mr. Krupp wanted to see me for one of his ‘extra credit opportunities’ he always offers me... that kinda always lead back to me making something to get you and your friend in trouble...” Melvin trailed off, avoiding eye contact and leaning back in his seat.

Melvin looked over at Harold, who was now rubbing his eyes and yawning as if he was about to fall asleep.

“You uh... worn out?” Melvin tried desperately to not make this as awkward as possible.

“Mhm.”

Harold finally looked over at Melvin, who seemed unnaturally concerned.

“It’s probably gonna be a while... you could take a nap if you want.”

Harold chucked as if he knew better.

“I don’t think I have a choice.”

Melvin was a bit relieved; at least Harold was making some sort of humor of the situation. The two of them sat in silence, looking off in their own directions for what seemed like forever. Looking back over, Melvin realized Harold actually did fall asleep. He was still sitting up, even.

“How has he not managed to fall over...?” Melvin mumbled to himself. Almost as if it was a reaction, Harold’s sleeping body started to lean over and fall... right onto Melvin. He, as you would expect, panicked. The kid who had been a nuisance to him for the longest time, who had caused so much trouble, was asleep on him. He didn’t try to wake the sleeping boy, since he could tell Harold needed this rest. Melvin’s train of thought was thrown off when he could feel Harold shift again. This time, he had loosely wrapped his arms around Melvin’s torso. The nerd’s face went as red as a tomato as he just sat there and stared at Harold as he slept, trying to think of what to do.

Melvin tried to move to where it was more comfortable for both of them without waking Harold up- turning to where he was leaning against the wall with Harold resting his head on Melvin’s chest. Melvin sighed as he just accepted everything that was happening - it’s not like he could do anything anyway. Harold seemed to have been through a lot today, so it was best not to bother him. Melvin wouldn’t like to admit it, but this was pretty nice, too. He draped his arms over Harold’s back, giving him any sort of comfort he could.

To Melvin’s dismay, Harold started to wake up a bit. Half-lidded eyes looked up at the other boy.

“M... Melvin...?”

Melvin’s face turned bright red as he tried to come up with an excuse for what was going on.

“I- I’m sorry...! You fell asleep on me- And I - uh-...!”

“Hey... Don’t worry about it...” Harold was half asleep and didn’t care in the first place. He tightened his hold on Melvin and buried his face in his chest.

“I’m too sleepy to care.”


End file.
